More Evidence that Blu-ray Is Struggling

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I can't understand Blu-Ray fanboys......as long as they enjoy it, why go around insisting everyone else should follow them? They need to realise that Blu-Ray may have beaten off HD-DVD....but it will NOT beat DVD. Ever. Blu-Ray will forever be a format that sits happily alongside DVD as an enthusiasts format, while the mass market is still happy to embrace DVD and will do for many years yet. That point where HD media overtakes sales of SD media will not happen in the lifetime of Blu-Ray. Independent market analysts predicted this even before the credit crunch.....so now, in a global recession, all talk of Blu-Ray outselling DVD in a couple of years is utter fantasy.....put forth by the companies with a vested interest in the format.
Take a typical punter like myself. I own all six incarnations of Star Trek and all ten movies....that alone cost me thousands of English pounds. It will be a cold day in HELL before I consign them to the scrapheap and replace them with Blu-Ray box sets. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to afford that. Star Trek is just a small percentage of my collection. I also own many other sci-fi series on DVD, like all TEN SEASONS of Stargate SG-1. No way on gods earth am I prepared to double dip. I double dipped with the upgrade from VHS to DVD because the tapes were wearing out and you couldn't buy new VHS machines. DVD's do not wear out, the quality is impressive (even more so when upscaled) and I will be able to buy a new DVD player whenever I want. The mass public upgrade from VHS to DVD was the last of its kind. You may want to dream about the same happening for BD, but don't hold your breath. And I write this in mid-2009.....a long time after this report, and well into the life of the humble Blu-Ray disc.
I can understand you fanboys wanting the public to jump on board, as it will make your HD movies cheaper, but that isn't my problem. It was you that chose to back a fledgling format....not me. As I said, it will be an enthusiast's format....like laserdisc....it will never dominate the market. DVD will be the market leader when whatever follows the BD makes its debut. I guarantee you that.

Matthew 8:04PM May 28, 2009

'What "other" technologies are there to go against it ?'
Think of Windows Vista, you can wait for the next 5 years to come and stay with XP for the time being.
Same with Blu-Ray. There might not be anything there now, wait 5 years and see for yourself if something HD will not be there. Let's face it, 1080p is NOT high definition.
Think of DVD up-scaling and the difference is minimal or too little to jump on a DRM's infested media.
Don't think that DRMs are there to protect the movie industry. It is there to give them a false sense of security as Blu-Ray's securities are already being cracked while making the genuine owner of Blu-Rays a criminal for placing the content of the media in their own house network or willing to play it on a Linux system.
The only preachers of Blu-Ray are Sony, business affiliates and PS3 owners.
PS3 owners have bought it with the excuse it was a great Blu-Ray player but to play games. There are not going now to say that Blu-Ray are not great.
Next to that there is the others like me who can play their DVDs without having to call home to its database to make a profile of you, who can play them on their home network, on their Linux system and to high definition with upscaling for a third of the price.
Back then when DVDs came out, it was evident people were going to jump on it just as they jumped on CDs to replace tapes but with this one, I can wait for better.

xeorex 9:48AM November 02, 2008

People who think Blu-ray will not succeed are either blind or upset because they bought a HD player, Blu-ray was always going to win because it had better support, bigger capacities (good for pc) and the PS3.
What "other" technologies are there to go against it ? HD lost, high def downloads will not beat it either, how many people own a 20mb+ broadband connection (even this is slow) and want to spend all day d/l hd content when they can buy a disc for as little as £5 from a shop, BD are not expensive, DVD's were similarly priced when they first came out, so were the players.
If you are really a movie lover then once you have seen the better quality of Blu-ray then you will want to buy a player and a HD tv, region coding moaning is a nonsense, it is there to protect the movie companies and the cinema companies, too be honest there are plenty of region free BD out there you have to look, you can always play them on your pc with region free software and hook your pc up to your HD tv.
Stop whinging about the technology we have today, enjoy it, everyone said cd's wouldnt work that dvd was a "fad", Blu-ray WILL win.

no1baggiesfan 6:59AM October 20, 2008

A fully functional implementation of black & white TV cameras and TV sets had been demonstrated several times by the year 1935. Economic crisis combined with World War prevented the full scale adoption of TV until the very early 1950s. Nevertheless, TV became one of the greatest hits of the century, and we can hardly imagine life before it.
If people are foregoing optional luxury purchases right now, you can't blame them. There is a banking and credit crisis afoot in the world right now. I believe this crisis has been and is impacting the adoption of Blu-Ray.
High-Def is the new 'thang. Sooner or later, people will want high def disks to go with their high def TVs. Blu-Ray is now the only way to get that quality material. Blu-Ray will be successful.

David A. Leon of CA 1:15PM October 01, 2008

Giving I can play my DVDs wherever I want just owning a DVD player, I wonder why if I setup an opensource Blu-Ray player I cannot play a legally bought Blu-Ray disc on it?
Studios', just get lost. I like my DVD's. At least they work.
Are consumers just stupid sheeps running to whatever they can spend money on?
They seem to think so!!
I am not a thief but a potential customer.
I don't like to be treated like a thief.

1:05PM October 01, 2008

Sorry, folks, this is a non-story. Week-to-week sales rise and fall a huge amount depending on what new titles have been released. If this comparison was done against a week with a big title release last year, or if no titles of note were released this year, relative sales will look stagnant. Hollywoodinhidef.com has debunked this and shown that when calculated with a rolling average (to smooth out variations due to major title releases) Blu-ray sales continue on a very healthy growth trend. With quality players now available for around $200 there's little excuse not to spend the extra $100 relative to a quality upscaling DVD player, considering the far better picture quality, sound quality, and additional content.

Bill Sheppard of CA 1:01AM October 01, 2008

The gains from Blu-ray if you have a reasonably sized (42" or better) HDTV and/or a compatible sound system are HUGE. Modest my ass... It hurts watching standard definition DVDs even on my 46" TV these days after seeing the clarity of high-def. And I don't even have perfect vision!
The problem I think truly is the price of the discs and equipment, not in that the technical advantage isn't there. Just the other day I was at Best Buy and I observed a couple oogling at a Blu-ray demo setup. The woman said to the man "You know, I do see a big difference from DVDs, especially in the clarity of the background objects." Then they basically admitted that there's no way they could afford another $400 player right now and then they saw the price of the discs and said "Oh well maybe next year."
If studios are smart, they will get Blu-ray disc prices in line with standard DVD prices by next Christmas. If this doesn't happen, it will die, sadly. I actually really like Blu-ray in lots of ways, in addition to the A/V improvements also their scratch resistance and how cool it is to tweak stuff in the menus and change scenes WHILE the movie is playing.

Pete of TX 11:01PM September 30, 2008

If there were Blu-ray recorders being sold in the US, I also think that would be a boon to the format as would be a price drop for players and disks. I base this partly on the fact that a local home theater dealer told me that they could sell Blu-ray recorders now to people who have bought hi-def video cameras since those peple would like to archive their content to Blu-ray. Any such recorder for the US market would also have to have an HDMI input. I want to be able to archive material like I could with VHS.
I realize there are two arguments against a US Blu-ray recorder.
1. People in the US use PVRs.
2. Piracy.
Personally, I think that both arguments are restraining the format. The more you argue that piracy is a problem, the more you hurt people who follow "fair use" rules. Also, you cannot archive to a PVR without removing the hard disk, and just how many PVRs out there allow you to remove the hard disk?
Give me a reasonably priced Blu-ray recorder (say around $500 US) and I'll buy the format right now. Barring that, I'll wait until players drop to $100 US or less.

Matthew of NY 12:54PM September 30, 2008

Drop the price
Drop the price
Drop the price
of all Blu-Ray Disks... enuff said.

Victor of FL 8:02AM September 30, 2008

The main thing for me is region coding. I don't want multiple players, just one machine that plays all. Sure, there are a few region free players at the moment but they're not able to play region 3 DVDs. For the time being I'm happy with a cheap upconverting DVD player that plays everything I throw at it.

yo han 4:56AM September 30, 2008